Redhead Home Depot wedge bolts

Any educated comments on using Redhead brand wedge bolts from Home Depot/Lowes for sandstone.  Spec sheet shows they are plenty strong and I have a suspicion that most of the bolts are made in the same factory and just rebranded.

You should go here for bolting questions.

http://www.safeclimbing.org/

Peter Blank wrote:

Any educated comments on using Redhead brand wedge bolts from Home Depot/Lowes for sandstone.  Spec sheet shows they are plenty strong and I have a suspicion that most of the bolts are made in the same factory and just rebranded.

You have an obligation, imo, to use SS bolts if at all possible. Otherwise its kinda just littering....

Depends on who you ask. The company definitely has been stigmatized for origin of production but plenty of areas have been developed with these bolts with the last couple decades and, more recently in PA, seen  routes put up with Redheads Dynabolts within the last couple years. Technically should be fine on based on their specs but not unanimously supported by the climbing community. Personally dont use them. Being in PA and the east coast, the community is pushing the Climbtech glue-ins as they are better for softrock.

Check these out for more crap on what people say about redheads:

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/111845433/are-these-useful-as-climbing-bolts

http://www.rockclimbing.com/forum/Climbing_Disciplines_C6/Sport_Climbing_F18/bolts_-_ramset/redhead,_petzl,_rawls/powers_P772401/ 

Double for the SS.

Thanks guys!  I put a couple on obscure routes that may not see second ascents for many years.

Depends on the sandstone. Might touch base with locals and see what they like doing. Guys use 5/8" drilled angles epoxyed in for soft sandstone and claim it outperforms wedge anchors. Most of us use the classic wedge anchor style with great success, but @here we generally have super hard rock. Any wedge anchor you install should be ICC rated. http://www.icc-es.org/ This service was developed for the building trades as it turns out that no one wanted under rated or fake weak ass product to fail and kill thousands of people. Climbers should be using rated product when possible. All of Redheads wedge anchors are rated. Thus, if you are buying Redhead brand, then you are good to go. If you are calling something which is a generic Chinese made wedge anchor a Redhead, but it's not made by Redhead, then that's bullshit. We should be precise in our language concerning such things. I believe Home Depot carries Simson brand, and they are ICC rated. My belief is that we should try to use only stainless steel as well. Naturally, if you want a temporary anchor so you can get it out and do a glue in, those points are not germaine. Glue ins work great too, if you are buying 2 part epoxy, there is a shelf life, check the tube for the exp date before you fork over your scratch.

Simson info/link below

https://www.strongtie.com/mechanicalanchors_mechanicalanchoringproducts/wa_anchor/p/wedge-all

ITW Red head info/link below:

https://www.itwredhead.com/

Home Depot only carries the plated steel bolts, but ITW Redhead does make 304 SS wedge anchors. You can find them pretty cheap online.

Haha. Make sure you know what you're getting if you're even shopping there. Just checked their website, the listings do not indicate any of them are stainless. 

Now, you can always get someone at the Prodesk to build you a quote for stainless, but I bet you won't like the price unless you have an open bid room ($1500 to open, how many bolts do you want...).

Yeah, why not go with Crapware for life support gear.  What could go wrong?

Peter,

Have anymore details? Sandstone, as you probably know, can range from drill burning hard to butter soft. A wedge type anchor will preform VERY poorly in soft stone (Moab, Grand Junction, Indian Creek) as there is not enough surface engagement with the inside of the hole to prevent the bolt from wallowing out the inside and loosing holding power. This can happen even as you go to tighten the bolt. This isnt an issue in harder rock, and wedge anchors are a fine choice if you are using stainless steel. If the rock is soft, 1/2" sleeve anchors are the minimum IMO.

As for bolts actually made by ITW Redhead you are fine. I've found that their bolts torque to spec reliably and as a plus they use US manufactured stainless steel.

Yes, Stainless Steel.  The difference in price is less than $1/bolt.

I've used a lot of Redhead wedge bolts like these ( lowes.com/pd/Red-Head-Trubo…) from Lowe's but only for house projects, trail building, and non-climbing applications. They work well enough but there's far better bolts for climbing out there for a marginal added cost. Even if it's obscure, chances are someone will climb it and then at some point someone will have to deal with the bolts. There's a ton of routes out there in western Colorado that the first ascentionists didn't think would get done again but they do and then the bad bolts used have to be replaced by someone's volunteer labor. For hard rock you can get Powers wedge bolts in stainless for cheap and for soft rock the Powers 1/2" sleeve bolts just aren't that expensive by comparison.

First off, Red Head sucks hairy ball sacs compared to Hilti. Go find those.

Second, in a dry environment plated bolts have about a 25 year life span. They aren't the death dealers the pearl-cluthers above are fretting about.

Third, if its just some remote thing no one will see for years why don't you pull the bolts with a funkness tool when done, or over drill by at least an inch and pound deep into the hole and patch over with epoxy when done.

With that in mind, why don't you just toprope the thing and get a sense of the route and leave the stone unaltered if you aren't making a destination worthy route?

Why are you asking your have already placed them ?